Happy Thanksgiving! In this bonus episode, I’m sharing something deeply personal — a part of my identity I’ve rarely spoken about publicly. I am a third-generation Zainichi Korean, born and raised in Japan, and I’m finally stepping into that history through a new creative initiative called The Zainichi Music Project, now sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

This episode marks the beginning of that journey — a project that will grow into a living archive of research, new music commissions, recordings, interviews, and documentary work.

In this episode, I talk about:

• What the word Zainichi actually means,
• How Japanese colonial rule  ...